A SERIAL offender banned from making female friends after charming his victims out of thousands of pounds and carrying out a series of sex attacks is behind bars.

Geoffrey Ball has used a string of aliases in the past to keep his identity a secret, and has repeatedly breached court orders designed to protect women from him, once sparking a manhunt after travelling around the country giving false names.

As part of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), he was banned from online dating sites and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

The order - imposed in January 2015 - also prohibits him from having any sort of a relationship with women unless he first tells his supervising police officer.

He is also obliged to inform any female with whom he plans to have a physical, sexual or platonic relationship of his previous convictions for sexual crimes.

At an earlier court hearing, the out-of-work electrician was described in a probation report as a dangerous man who posed a high risk of sexual offending.

Teesside Crown Court heard Ball had a one-night stand last August with a 50-year-old woman he met in Yates’ Wine Lodge in Middlesbrough town centre before going back to her home, but did not tell her about his past.

Initially, Ball, who admitted a breach of the SHPO, insisted he could not remember having sex with the woman, but altered his account when the judge said he refused to believe the “incredible” claim.

Jonathan Harley, mitigating, said: “He certainly didn’t go out with the intention of entering into a relationship with anybody. He simply went out for some drinks.

"He has got to get into his head and he has to understand he cannot act in the way any normal person not subject to a SHPO can act.”

He was jailed for 16 months, and was told by Judge Sean Morris: “The fact you have flouted these regulations again and again needs to be brought home to you. You must understand you are becoming your own worst enemy. You must comply with these orders.”

The court heard Ball had regularly breached orders or licence requirements which had led in the past to him being returned to prison - only to offend upon release.

He also has convictions for robbery and burglary and impersonating a police officer, as well as sexual and indecent assaults on women in 1989, 2010 and 2015.

Ball, who had previously lived in Middlesbrough, Guisborough and Redcar, has left a trail of victims in his history of offending, including one who attempted suicide.